The Smiling Man

There stood the Smiling Man again. Always watching, always smiling. That mangled toothy grin contorted from ear to ear in the shape of a damaged crescent moon. His hollow black eyes were like a doll's eyes. So blank and lifeless yet you know he was looking at you. He followed me for weeks, sometimes from a distance and other times around every corner. Whenever I looked around I could see him stand there. Always watching, always smiling

I first heard about this menacing stalker from a disturbed individual named Jonathan Fich. He was a bright young man if not overzealous when it came to talking about how the government had complete control or when he believed his parents were in the devil's pockets. Yet despite all these wild accusations the most bizarre of them all was how he described the one I mentioned before: the Smiling Man. During our sessions together, Fich always looked to the ground. He would never dare look any one person in the eye because as he claimed then the Smiling Man would be there. Always watching, always smiling.

I finally got him to talk about this Smiling Man. We sat at the table together as he went into great detail of this devilish figure.

"He is not a man." He would say. Trembling nonstop as his gaze remained focused at his feet. "He is not a ghost or spirit or demon. He is something else. I could hear him at night. He stands outside my door. He tells me to endure horrible acts on myself."

"What sort of acts, Mr. Fich?" I asked him.

"Just things. Cutting myself. Slashing others. Murder, rape, torture. Horrible deeds. What's worst is that he'll be there. Just staring and smiling like the sick sadist it truly is." 

Then he finally looked up at me. His bright eyes quivered rapidly. His breathing heavily as if something was squeezing his lungs.

"You want to know what truly is the worst thing about him-" He tried to continue but his focus broke. He started staring at someone or something behind me. His timid nature turned violent as he flipped the table and fought off the orderlies that tried to restrain him. "HE'S HERE! HE'S RIGHT THERE, DOCTOR. HE'S STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU. HOW DO YOU DAMNED IDIOTS NOT SEE HIM?"

After his frightening outburst, we confined him to his living quarters. An hour later the orderlies found him with his thumbs and eye sockets cloaked in his own blood. They had to wrestle him again as he attempted to gouge out what remained of his eyes so he could not see this Smiling Man anymore. The same night he slit his own throat in the infirmary with a broken glass shard. 

I failed him. I failed to save his troubled thoughts. Cases like these don't usually get to me but with what happened to Mr. Fich I couldn't help but completely grieve for this lost soul. As I grieved for him that night I thought I saw rows of teeth gleam through the darkness of my apartment. 

Jonathan Fich was buried at his parent's estate under their request. I myself attended the funeral that was held. As his casket was lowered into the earth and the priest begged our Lord for the safe guidance of Mr. Fich's soul something drew me to look up at his childhood home. There in the window that was once his room, there he stood. The every horrid entity that had tormented Mr. Fich for so long, and his gaze was now fixated on me. My lungs grew heavy and my heart beat faster on first glance. I tried to ignore it but his presence was already made. He was there. Always watching, always smiling.

My first sighting of this grinning phantom was not the worst to follow. He followed me like a rotten stench. He appeared again when young Mr. Fich's parents threatened a lawsuit against me for the negligent care for their son. He was there when my office was boarded up, and there yet again when my reputation was ruined.

Now I sit alone in my apartment with the exception of three to accompany my sorrow: This foul-tasting bottle of whiskey, a loaded handgun, and him, that damned spirit, standing right in front of me. I now know his curse won't stop. He'll spread from person to person like a virus and we are powerless before him. I stared up at him as he stared back at me. Even when I'm departed, he'll be there.

Always watching, always smiling.